06 July 2010

Chronicling, like acquisition, is a failed defense against impermanence. We can’t take our stuff with us when we go, but we can’t even take our experiences with us into the next moment, except by recording them, by talking about them. Gossip can be understood through these texts as perhaps a function of longing rather than a malicious impulse; if we don’t tell someone about what happened or where we’ve been, that experience may just vanish. Telling people what happened is the acquisitive impulse applied to experience. Buying too much stuff is the same thing as telling secrets. Indiscretion is a kind of longing.

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"Because the consequences for human welfare involved in questions like these are simply staggering: Once one starts to think about them, it is hard to think about anything else." (Lucas 1988, On the Mechanics of Economic Development)

"The philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point however is to change it" (Marx 1888)

I'm Head of Research at Ark Education Partnerships Group, a charity working with governments and non-state actors in developing countries to give every child an excellent education. Roving Bandit is a reference to Mancur Olson, not because I think I'm some kind of badass.